Report: Mashboxx eyes Grokster's carcass
Tech analysts are waiting to see who, if anyone, scoops up what's left of Grokster after the file-sharing network closed down Monday.
The San Francisco Chronicle said Tuesday that sources told them that one of the potential buyers is Mashboxx, a file-sharing company that last summer signed a licensing agreement with the Sony record label.
Grokster agreed to stop distributing its software Monday and paid a hefty $50 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the industry over the trafficking in copyright music and movie downloads. The company now looks to be joining Napster and iMesh in the effort to make peer-to-peer file sharing comply with copyright laws.
Some analysts, however, told the Chronicle that Grokster was a relatively small presence in P2P and predicted a long-running battle would continue between the industry and P2P companies.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International